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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954416">An Introduction To Feline Care And Advanced Emotional Repression</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom'>kaijuvenom</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Community (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, I literally watched community in three days and it broke me, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Which is why this is a series, but I’m hoping I’ll write more at some point, but episodic, but they’re all connected, i want to write a bunch of one shots, if that makes sense, like theres no overarching plot except the developing trobed, so here’s this, theres not much to it since it’s my first work in this fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:21:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,035</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Course Prerequisites: Internalized Homophobia 101 (With Lab)<br/>Please Bring With You: One (1) Stray Cat (Alive), One (1) Oblivious Best Friend With An Unconfirmed Sexuality (Alive)<br/>Course Description: This course will teach students how to successfully conceal their feelings for their best friends, even as the aforementioned best friend falls asleep cuddling with the stray cat you found outside your shared apartment, because if you can resist that, you can resist anything they do. Probably. Results not guaranteed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>An Introduction To Feline Care And Advanced Emotional Repression</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>like I said in the tags, this is my first community fic but i kin abed so hard this just gushed out of me so,, yeah,<br/>Update: it has been edited (sort of)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abed found a cat sitting outside the door to their apartment building. He wasn’t disturbed by it, but it was a rather unexpected turn of events. He tilted his head at it, and it stared back at him. </p><p>“Are you one of those talking cats that’ll transform me into a magical girl?” He asked, less because it was a genuine question and more for comedic effect. </p><p>The cat either hated or appreciated his humor, because she meowed at him, and after a significantly long amount of time standing and silently staring at a cat that may or may not be magical, the aforementioned cat got up and walked into the building. Abed followed her up the stairs and onto the floor of his apartment. The cat stopped climbing the stairs as if she’d noticed Abed had stopped following, looking back and meowing at him. </p><p>“This is my floor,” Abed said, jutting his head towards the hallway. “You’re welcome to come with.”</p><p>Seemingly taking that as an invitation, the cat turned and walked towards him, rubbing cat hair onto his pant leg and looking up at him with two very large and very mismatched eyes that looked in two different directions. She meowed at him as he took a step forward, once again placing herself in front of him and meowing, as if Abed should know exactly what she was trying to communicate with her meowing. </p><p>“You want me to stay?”</p><p>The cat did not meow at that.</p><p>“You want me to pick you up?”</p><p>It may have been a coincidence, but the cat <em> did </em>meow at that. So Abed chose to pick the cat up. </p><p>“I’m naming you Spot,” Abed decided, although he doubted the cat understood the significant honor he was bestowing on her by giving her that name, because she didn’t even dignify those words with a responding meow. </p><p>He managed to carry her in one arm as he fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door, at which point Spot the cat decided to leap gracefully out of Abed’s arms and race around their apartment for several seconds before jumping onto the kitchen counter, sitting down, and licking her paw like she’d been there all along. </p><p>“I don’t have any cat food,” Abed told her. “Or any cat toys. Or a cat bed. I’ll have to get those before Troy comes back from classes. Promise you’ll be good while I’m gone?” </p><p>Spot continued licking her paw, which Abed took as a yes, and scratched her behind the ears before he left again. </p><p> </p><p>********</p><p> </p><p>    Abed had been in love before. Several times, in fact. He tended to fall in love far more quickly than he’d like, but at least he was predictable. It wasn’t often he made friends, most of his friendships were online before he’d come to Greendale, and hence most of the people he fell in love with were online.</p><p>It had never worked out, obviously, and Abed had learned his lesson about trying to date people he met online. Not that there was anything wrong with the people he met, but relationships lived through occasional Skype calls and Twitter direct messages didn’t have the longest shelf life.</p><p>He’d never fallen in love with someone he met in real life. Of course, he’d been with plenty of men, but only ever as one night stands and usually because he’d been playing a character and not because they actually liked <em> him </em>as a person.</p><p>Not until Troy, at least. </p><p>At first, Troy was simply an attractive face to stare at during Spanish class, then he became a casual acquaintance, very quickly after that moving up to become a good friend. Then a best friend. Then someone who understood him, and that brought him into dangerous territory. His casual crush on Troy due to the surface level of his aesthetically pleasing face quickly became what Abed knew very well to be love. </p><p>To be perfectly honest, Abed had no idea what Troy thought of him save from their being best friends. He didn’t know if Troy liked men, if he knew about Abed’s feelings and came to a silent conclusion that he’d say nothing about it, if he was oblivious, or if anyone else had noticed Abed’s love. </p><p>Abed thought his love was obvious. His behavior alone in the way he spoke and acted towards Troy compared to anyone else should have been a tip-off. He didn’t flinch away when Troy touched him and often initiated physical contact, he didn’t hesitate to express his feelings of love (although he never explicitly stated them as romantic, he never specified they were platonic either), and he remembered important dates and milestones in their relationship. One might even call them <em> anniversaries. </em> </p><p>Troy had never acknowledged Abed’s romantic love, and Abed couldn’t tell <em> why </em>that was. It was times like this when he wished he knew how to read people. He would like to come right out and ask, “are you avoiding my romantic overtures because they aren’t obvious enough and you’re oblivious, or because you nonverbally indicated to me you weren’t interested and believe the matter to be closed?” but that would defeat the whole purpose of leaving hints. Abed didn’t deal well in confrontation. </p><p>And the last thing he wanted was to ruin their friendship, whether by getting in a relationship with Troy or by having unrequited feelings of love for him. He knew it was a cliche trope, but perhaps the reason why it was cliche was because it actually <em> did </em>happen in real life, not just in TV shows. </p><p>At least, this was how he explained it to the salesman at the pet store who asked if he was doing okay and if he needed any help. </p><p>“I’ll just… give you some more time,” they said, slowly backing away down the cat food aisle and disappearing. </p><p>Abed shrugged to himself, going back to his examination of cat treats. He still had yet to understand the difference between <em> organic, all-natural, </em> and <em> free range. </em> He decided to buy all of them. </p><p>When he arrived back at the apartment, he ran into Troy on the sidewalk. Which wasn’t ideal. He’d been planning on getting everything set up for Spot before Troy was home, but evidently he’d lost track of time whilst discussing his woes with the pet store salesman. Instead, he was now staring at Troy in silence, holding several bags of cat supplies and figuring he looked rather guilty. </p><p>“Abed…” Troy began, taking a step closer to examine the contents of the bags. “Did you get a cat?”</p><p>Abed blinked at him, not sure of the best response. “Technically, I think the cat got me.”</p><p>“I’ll rephrase that. Abed, is there a cat in our apartment right now?”</p><p>“... Yes.”</p><p>There was another long silence, and despite Troy showing no visible sign of anger or distress at the news of an additional roommate, Abed still shifted nervously.</p><p>Finally, Troy spoke again. “Let me help you with the bags,” he said, holding out a hand expectantly. </p><p>Abed grinned, handing them over and following Troy into their apartment building and up the stairs. “She’s tan,” he said, “with some white spots. I named her Spot.”</p><p>“That’s a fucking brilliant name,” Troy responded, turning briefly to glance at him as he pulled his key out of his back pocket once they reached the door. </p><p>“I thought so.”</p><p>Thankfully, the apartment was still in order when they opened the door, and Spot, unlike her namesake, had not decided to completely destroy anyone’s property. She was also apparently happy to see Abed, as she leapt off the kitchen counter at his appearance and rubbed herself against his legs, then decided he was boring and investigated Troy, making sure to get just as much cat hair on his pant legs as well.</p><p>Setting the bags down, Abed picked her up, gently patting her head before handing her to Troy. </p><p>“You must talk to her. Tell her she is a good cat. And a pretty cat,” he said, tilting his head robotically, delighting in the way Troy laughed at his impersonation. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of making Troy laugh. </p><p>“You do a perfect Data,” Troy said, and that was another thing Abed didn’t think he’d ever get tired of; the way Troy never hesitated to compliment him. “And she is a good cat. And a pretty cat,” Troy added, cradling her in his arms and kissing the top of her head. “But I thought cats didn’t like you.”</p><p>Abed shrugged as he began taking things out of the bags and opening up packages of treats and cat toys. “Most of them don’t. But she was just sitting there, like she was waiting for me. I’ll take her to the vet tomorrow to get microchipped, and I’ve already looked through all the lost cat ads around here. I didn’t see her.”</p><p>Troy nodded, letting Spot jump out of his arms to investigate the treats Abed had brought her. </p><p>“If she isn’t microchipped, we can keep her, right?” Abed asked suddenly, turning to look at Troy. </p><p>“Yeah. I mean, you named her. She’s one of us now. She’s gonna be part of our Halloween costume this year.”</p><p>Abed smiled, placing the cat treats in a previously empty kitchen cupboard in alphabetical order, then by order of how punny the names of the treats were, until finally settling on ordering them by how many synonyms for <em> organic </em>were shoved on each label. It took him far longer than it probably should have, meaning there was enough time for Troy to move to his armchair and turn on the TV.</p><p>Trying not to look like he was staring at Troy while absolutely definitely staring at Troy, Abed began setting up the cat bed and scratching post he’d bought, watching as Spot leapt onto Troy’s lap and curled up in a little ball, seemingly fast asleep before Troy could even pick a season of <em> Frasier.  </em></p><p>“Go with four,” Abed said, getting frustrated after several minutes of watching Troy squint at the seasons. “It’s objectively the best written.”</p><p>Troy glanced over at him before looking away and shrugging, selecting the season and letting the first episode start. “You’re only saying that because it has your favorite episode with Lilith.”</p><p>And he was right about that. “I like Lilith,” Abed answered blandly, pushing the scratching post against the wall so it was out of the way. </p><p>“Then why not watch <em> Cheers?”  </em></p><p>“Because <em> Cheers </em>isn’t as good.” </p><p>Troy let out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, which Abed took to mean the conversation was over, and he was now free to go back to silently staring at Troy in that same sort of quiet awe he only ever reserved for things he <em> really, really </em>loved. He actually spent so long staring at Troy that he’d forgotten he was still sitting on the floor, and both his legs were numb. </p><p> </p><p>********</p><p> </p><p>    The annoying, passive aggressive, <em> are you still watching? </em>Netflix popup had been up for several hours now, and it was actually well into the night, but Abed was in a rather tricky position. He’d like to go to sleep, but at the same time, he was trapped in a picture perfect moment in time which he’d like to last forever. </p><p>    Troy had fallen asleep at least an hour ago, and Spot hadn’t moved from his lap. Actually, she was lying more on his chest now as he leaned back in the chair, one arm wrapped around her and the other dangling off the armrest. </p><p>    It was the kind of scene Abed supposed an episode of a sitcom might end with, slowly zooming out from the image of Troy sleeping with an adorable cat on his chest to show Abed, staring at him like a lovesick schoolgirl, before fading to black, all while a catchy theme song played over it.</p><p>    Or maybe Abed had just been watching too much <em> Frasier. </em> </p><p>    Either way, he was left with the unenviable task of waking Troy up before he got a crick in his neck or pulled a muscle from such an awkward sleeping position. </p><p>    Maybe he could just wait a few more minutes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
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